Day 90: Prescribed Burn

Apparently it's that time of year - prescribed burn season. Today there is a large prescribed burn just south of town, and the smoke filled the sky. Those aren't clouds, but smoke. I took this photo when I ran back to my apartment because I left my lunch sitting on the counter. I'm glad I live close enough to work that I can just pop back to the apartment if I forget something.

Day 89: Breakfast

This was my breakfast this morning - summer porridge. Sometimes it's known as refrigerator oatmeal or cold oatmeal. It's a make-ahead breakfast with Greek yogurt, milk and oats chia seeds. Today's concoction also has sliced strawberries and a little strawberry jam, but I make it with a variety of flavour add-ins. Yumm!

Day 88: Birthday Cake

I've always thought legal addictions are a great way to create a business. Starbucks is a wonderful example. ~  Nolan Bushnell

For  a few days only, Starbucks has a special birthday cake frappuccino in honour of Starbucks' birthday. I had one today and it was quite tasty. It's been a while since I've had a frappe, but this one seemed incredibly sweet. It's vanilla bean and hazelnut with raspberry whipped cream. Umm!

Day 87: S'mores

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tonight I went to a bonfire with some friends from my small group. We sat around this beautiful fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s'mores. I hadn't had a s'more in such a long time, and had almost forgotten how tasty they are. Oh, and messy.

Day 85: Mint Julep Gum

I found this gum at the check-out line at JoAnn's fabric store. I so rarely buy things at check-out, but today I just couldn't resist. This gum is so interesting, as it really does taste like it has Bourbon in it. Take me back to Kentucky!

Day 84: Splash Mountain

I'm enjoying a fun little project work, and this is part of it. Tonight I drew and painted this backdrop for my Peeps diorama. Yes, we're having a Peeps diorama contest at work. This is meant to represent the Splash Mountain ride at Disneyland.

Day 83: Prairie Dog

When I lived in the Coops, I saw the prairie dog holes every day. However, the little guys were hibernating for the winter, so I didn't see any of the actual animals. But now it's spring, and they've come out to play. I took this photo right in front of my old coop. It's fun to just sit and look out on the prairie dog down, and see them scamper from hole to hole and chatter to each other.

Day 82: Sacred Bathrooms

This magazine appeared in our break room today and I opened it because the back cover had an advertisement for tea. It's a magazine about health and spirituality, and I opened it to this page about sacred spot. The photos and captions are shared by readers, and this one struck me.

"While not everyone has the chance to visit famous sacred sites, almost everyone visits the bathroom."

Really, the bathroom?

Day 81: Red Mountain

What are men to rocks and mountains? ~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Today I went on a hike with some people from my small group at church. We try to go hiking every other week or so. We went to Red Mountain, which is north of Flagstaff on Highway 180. Red Mountain is an ancient volcano with red rock, lots of cinders and hoodoos, which are the tall rock formations.

The trail itself is quite easy and fairly level. However, once you get to the end of the trail you can choose to climb up the rocks.

Of course, guess what we chose? Getting down these steep inclines is always much more difficult than getting up!

Day 80: The Moon

I've never seen a moon in the sky that, if it didn't take my breath away, at least misplaced it for a moment. ~ Colin Farrell

It's hard take a photo of moon without a tripod. But, the moon's so beautiful tonight I just couldn't resist. 20x optical zoom with a hand-held doesn't result in a particularly sharp photo.

The moon often seems bigger here, even when it's just a sliver as it is tonight.

Day 79: Spring

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! ~ Chief Sitting Bull

What a beautiful first day of spring! The sky was clear and blue and it was sixty degrees. Beautiful.

Of course, we haven't seen much of a winter here. Two big snowfalls, several smaller ones and just over half of the average winter snowfall (which, at 56 inches, is more snow than I've ever seen in one winter). With these beautiful, warm days it seems unlikely that we'll see much more snow, so I'll just keep enjoying the spring weather.

Day 78: Work Space

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. ~ Attributed to Confucius

This is one of my work spaces for the time being. One of my jobs is photography of objects for documentation purposes, and this is where I do it. I took a photo of my color card last week (though I now have a new one that is all mine; read: I don't have to share it with anyone!). Here is my fancy camera, photo table, tripod and lights with diffusers.

It's pretty cool that I get to work on my photography skills at work. I set the camera settings to manual, which means I set the white balance and adjust the aperture and shutter speed myself. In other words, when I'm photographing objects, I'm essentially being paid to play at my new hobby - photography with a DSLR.

Day 77: Trivia

Why is it trivia? People call it trivia because they know nothing and they are embarrassed about it.  ~ Robbie Coltrane

Because my neighborhood group at church is technically a college group, we did not meet today due to Spring Break. Instead, a group of us got together for a trivia night at a place downtown. I'd never done a trivia night before, and it was a blast. We did alright - placed ninth out of twenty-something teams. Funnily enough, we did the worst on the pop culture sections, like music and internet sensations. But the geology and currency categories? We rocked those.

Day 76: Colcannon

Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep. ~ Dave Barry

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day, I made a nice little Irish meal for dinner tonight - colcannon and soda bread. Both were delicious, and reminded me of dinners back home. Colcannon is a traditional Irish dish of potatoes, cabbage, onions and sometimes bacon. I suppose if I really wanted to have an Irish dinner I could have added some boiled potatoes, fried potatoes and baked potatoes as sides.

As you can see, the bottom of the bread burned a bit. I'm still learning to bake at 7,000 feet elevation, and a frequent issue I've had is burned bottoms and gooey insides. Luckily, this is a large enough loaf of bread that I can easily avoid the burnt bottom crust and just enjoy the rest of the deliciousness.

Day 75: Blank

That's right - a blank post. I made it 74 days without missing a photograph, but somehow I ended today without taking one. While it was bound to happen sometime, I'm still disappointed that I have day without a photo.

Day 74: Mexico

And then in the desert, when the sun come up, I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It's so beautiful. ~ Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump

We made the drive back to Flagstaff today and took the southern route. At one point we pulled off the road, and this was the view that greeted us. Mexico is right on the other side of that fence.

This may be the desert, but I thought the drive was beautiful.

Day 73: The Beach

On the beach, you can live in bliss. ~ Dennis Wilson

We spent today at the beach, which was a ton of fun. We headed to San Diego and Mission Beach, one of the most popular beaches in San Diego. It was a hot day - 93 degrees - which was perfect beach weather. It's strange that less than a week ago I was skiing and today I was at a beach.

The only downside? I ended up with a sunburn, even after putting on sunscreen. Still, a day playing in the Pacific Ocean was worth it!

Day 72: Taping

Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun. ~  Randy Pausch

Today was a long but fun day, which began with a trip to Legoland. We rode rides, played in the water and admired all of the amazing lego creations. In the evening we drove up to Venice Beach for the taping of American Ninja Warrior. This was certainly an experience!

It was fascinating to see what goes into the taping of a show like this. Before the contestants came on, the film crew filmed the audience acting out different reactions - like cheering, or looking sad - rather than just filming these while we actually watched contestants. It was very interesting!

Day 71: Road Trip

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust

This afternoon I set off on a weekend road trip with a friend and some of her family. We're headed to California for the weekend.

The drive between Flagstaff and Los Angeles is really quite beautiful. You descend from pine forests to high desert. Mountains and rock formations provide picturesque views along the road. This photo was taken from the backseat of a moving van, and I think the landscape still looks beautiful.

Day 70: Color Card

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most. ~ John Ruskin

Today I began the photography portion of my work project. This is the color chart that I use in each photograph. It helps to ensure that colors are true to life and helps when setting the white balance on a camera. I actually had a better photo of the card, but managed to delete it from my camera before transferring to my computer. Oops.

It was an adventure to get all of the equipment together and then play with camera settings and lights in order to get the best photographs possible. As it turns out, collections storage typically does not have ideal lighting for photography.

Day 69: My Life

Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you. ~ Walt Whitman

When I walk between buildings at work, or stare out at this view from the collections center, I can't quite get my mind around the fact that I live here. Throughout most of my adult life the view outside my window has mostly consisted of brown and flat.

But not here in Flagstaff. My museum campus is beautiful, and I enjoy the scenery every day. On a side note, exactly one week ago there was 18 inches of snow on this ground. It melts fast up here!

Day 68: Skiing

Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face. ~ Dave Barry

Today I went downhill skiing for the first time. A day on the slopes was a Christmas present from my parents this year, and today I took advantage.

I've cross-country skied before, and really enjoyed it. My least favourite part of cross-country is going downhill, so I was very unsure about this whole downhill skiing thing. In the end, I had a lot of fun. I think I need to go a few more times to build up confidence. Unfortunately, I didn't complete a single run without falling at least once, but luckily I didn't run into anything. Basically, I find myself going faster than I want to, I try to stop or turn, and my skis end up tangled. Nevertheless, I had fun and was proud of my fledgling skills.

It was a good day, but I can tell I'm going to be sore tomorrow!

Day 67: Sunday Afternoon

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  ~ Susan Ertz

This is how I spent part of my afternoon - reading, highlighting and eating Cadbury mini eggs. Oh, and drinking a nice cup of tea. It was a wonderful - and tasty - way to spend some time.

Years ago I began using crayons to highlight in my Bible. Regular highlighters bleed through the thin pages, and crayons have been the perfect solution.

Day 66: Preparation

In all things, success depends on previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure. ~ Confucius

Today I did a little preparation for my Monday adventure - skiing. I was looking at gear and found this website, with this little gem. I think it amused me more than it should have.

Day 65: A Walk in the Park

"We're a nation of dreamers and it is my dream to build a park that I one day visit with my White House staff on my birthday. And they say, "President Knope, this park is awesome. Now we understand why you are the first female President of the United States." ~  Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation

This afternoon I took a walk through Buffalo Park, which is still beautifully snow-covered.

The path was not quite as pleasant, as it was muddy and mucky and full of puddles. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed my little walk before I set off on an ultimately unsuccessful hunt for ski pants.

Day 64: Killer Icicles

Winter giveth the field, and the trees so old, their beard of icicles and snow. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The icicles around the museum today are huge. It's hard to tell, but these ones are several feet long! And for some reason they're pointed inwards like daggers.

Day 63: Almost Full

What is you want, Mary? Do you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. ~ George Bailey, It's a Wonderful Life

The moon will be full tomorrow night, though it almost seems full this evening. I suppose there is a tiny sliver missing, but I can't tell. Perhaps because the moon was so huge this evening. It was a bit distracting as I was driving to small group, and of course I took and opportunity to snap a photo over the snowy roof once I arrived at my destination.

Day 62: Snowy Morning

When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I'll know I'm getting old. ~ Lady Bird Johnson

It was a snowy morning at the museum today. Of course, that is what 17.9 inches of snow over two days usually means. This place is beautiful when its blanketed with snow.

I took the bus again, because why would I drive if I don't have to? Schools are once again cancelled, though we are not. I must admit, this view is worth it.

Day 61: Winter Winds

When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale...

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song; 
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Snowy trees. I just love 'em. After ten inches yesterday and over seven today, Flagstaff is once again a winter wonderland. A foot and a half of snow in two days; that's still hard for me to fathom.

I went on a walk this evening, and saw a bunch of people out on their cross-country skis. That certainly would have made things easier! The snow is beautiful, the world feels so quiet when sounds are muffled by a thick layer of fluffy white.

We closed early today, as did most businesses that were open (many were not in anticipation of the storm). Apparently Flagstaff has had 4.09 inches of liquid since Friday night, making this the 18th wettest consecutive three-day stretch since 1898. Warmer temperatures on Saturday and yesterday evening meant that a lot of this fell as rain.

Day 60: Snowstorm

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together. ~ Vista M. Kelly

We were supposed to have big snowstorm yesterday, but that didn't pan out. Then, it was supposed to rain until early Monday morning, and instead it snowed almost 10 inches. What's up with the forecast around here?

Of course, 10 inches of snow in Flagstaff means most things run as usual. This was part of the drive to church this morning, with the snow still coming down. A friends came and picked me up to drive me to church, which was a huge blessing. I certainly wasn't looking forward to driving in this.